


interstices

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Slash, Developing Relationship, Deviates From Canon, F/M, First Kiss, Getting Together, Guilt, M/M, POV Character of Color, POV Lando Calrissian, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 02:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6734032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You’re a woman who holds grudges, I can tell</i>, he might have said once. If this hadn’t happened. If they’d met under normal circumstances. If betrayal hadn’t been the point grinding itself out between them. If instead it had been a trick or a con or anything else, he might, too, have smiled at her and showed more daring. <i>That’s what I like about you</i>.</p><p>[written for the <a href="https://maythe4thbewithyou.dreamwidth.org/">may the 4th be with you 2016</a> treat collection]</p>
            </blockquote>





	interstices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



“Hey, Leia,” Han says as he’s pulled back toward the carbon-freezing chamber, the stormtroopers’ dark gloves a stark contrast against the paleness of his shirt. At seeing it, Lando wants to do nothing more than to take his cue from Chewbacca and knock the lot of them aside. Just yank Han away from them and take this whole rotten deal back. He _wants_ to do that and more, but fear and responsibility make for a terrible, effective glue. The Empire doesn’t need gas freezing technology to keep him still.

He wishes he didn’t know that about himself.

Han swallows, the shadowed jut of his throat shifting. His head turns this way and that, like he wants to take in as much as he can while he still can. “Leia, tell Luke—”

The chamber descends into the floor, a slow, sludgy creep that seems to go on forever. Something like terror widens Han’s eyes. Something like terror and understanding and the draining of fight as realization sets in. There will be no escape for him. Not from this. “Ah, hell.”

“Han, I know. He knows,” Leia replies, fierce, full of anger, loud enough so that Han—and everyone else—can hear. She is incandescent, beautiful with rage. Her attention flicks his way for the briefest of moments and he—he _feels_ it. In his chest, pulsing behind his heart, beating right alongside it. She wants him dead. Probably as much as Lando wants Vader and Fett and Emperor kriffing Palpatine dead. Maybe even more. For what he did. “But I’ll tell him again. As many times as you want me to.”

Something relaxes in Han, something Lando never knew existed because he’s seen Han a thousand different ways in a thousand different situations and he’s never, ever seen Han _look_ like that before.

Worse and worse.

Han had to go and fall in _love_. And had to play bait for his lover. Because of Lando. Funny how Vader had left that part out. No doubt he’d known. Maybe, too, he had known that this, this might have made the difference between acquiescence and a bloody fight.

Han’s never gonna forgive him.

Ever.

And Leia, well. He doesn’t want to know what she’s going to do with him. Nothing good, he’s sure. He’s been in enough bad situations to know that much. And unlike most of the galaxy, Leia doesn’t find him even the least bit charming. That’s going to make it really, _really_ difficult to make things right with her.

But that’s not going to stop him from trying.

As the chamber lifts, Han now entombed in carbonite, Lando makes that promise. To Han. And to Leia. He will go to the ends of the universe to make this right.

*

Lando roams the winding corridors of the _Millennium Falcon_ , familiar and foreign. Home and not home. She’s just as he remembers her—right down to the exposed wires only half-wrapped in a protective coating, coiled and spilling out of inconvenient panels that both Lando and Han had been too lazy to fix. Nothing that would hurt their baby’s performance, but… His fingertips skim every surface, cool to the touch. He tries to imagine what it would be like if he’d earned passage aboard this ship. If he’d done more than betray his friend to feel it beneath his feet again.

There is no arithmetic that could calculate the odds that he’d feel warmer under such a circumstance—if, say, he was merely here to share in an adventure with a friend, a mad-cap caper with a lot of credits, a lot of _fun_ on the line—but he’d still gamble on the truth of it. It’s cold in here. And not just because the temperature is low.

Chewbacca eventually finds him in the galley, his feet kicked up on the table, his chair tilted on two legs, once he tires of cataloging the _Falcon’s_ current state.

Growling, Chewbacca points at him and then at the floor and then crosses his arms. His tirade continues for a long, long moment. Lando only catches one in every three words he says, most of them one curse word or another simply because Lando has made a study of the language of anger. Helps when he finds himself in sticky situations. Chewbacca caps his argument with a snort.

After a speech like that, Lando’s got no recourse but to comply.

“Yeah, yeah.” The chair’s front legs strike the ground with a dull thunk. “I’ll put the maglock back on. Just keep your coat on.” Climbing to his feet, he stomps toward the computer embedded in the wall, punches in the code that’ll reinstate normal safety protocols. He lifts his hands as he turns to face his tall, hairy friend, waving them in a proclaimation of innocence. “There, you happy?”

 _No_ , he says in Shyriiwook. Spinning, he abandons Lando to his thoughts once more. The plodding thud of his gait echoes back to him, only fading once he’s far, far down the hall. _Must be going back to the cockpit. Better stay away from there. Just for the time being._

Chafing his arms, palms catching on the rough fabric of Han’s twice-damned tunic—one of several Lando had scrounged up, how many cream-colored shirts does one man need?—he returns to his seat. “I’m installing heated floors,” he says with the definitiveness of a man who knows his audience is an empty room and nothing but. “And some new thermal conductors.”

He refuses to think about how he’s gonna tell Leia he’s failed again. Has found not a single new lead on Han’s whereabouts since the last time he’d commed. It should be easy by now considering how often he’s made this particular call. But no. No. It just gets harder. Harder and harder and harder.

It’s like Han’s completely disappeared from the universe. And it’s difficult enough saying as much to Luke, Luke who always tells Lando to take care of himself out there—even though the only thing he really knows about Lando is he’d gotten Han into this mess to begin with. But Leia…

Leia looks at him like she expects nothing from him and still ends up disappointed for it. Why it matters so much to him is a topic on which he wouldn’t care to speculate, but the truth of it smacks him in the face twice a Standard week. Leia’s opinion matters. The lower and lower it gets, the more it counts.

That’s a new one by him. Used to be he just moved on when things got complicated.

*

Leia’s features fuzz, the blue of the holoprojector blurring the already rough edges of her image. She looks almost… almost what, Lando can’t say. “I’m sorry, Princess,” he says. Even with all the practice, the apology sticks in his throat. He’s not a man made for apologies. And if the tiny indentations forming between Leia’s eyebrows—those always seem to get through loud and clear despite the distortion—are any indication, she’s not made for accepting them either.

 _You’re a woman who holds grudges, I can tell,_ he might have said once. If this hadn’t happened. If they’d met under normal circumstances. If betrayal hadn’t been the point grinding itself out between them. If instead it had been a trick or a con or anything else, he might, too, have smiled at her and showed more daring. _That’s what I like about you_.

That resentment turned against him in this way for this one action though? It’s the firmest hell he can think of.

He waits for a response from her. Any response. But she remains quiet, body still, her head turned away. Just when he’s about to fill the silence with meaningless drivel, noise to pass the time, she says, “Keep searching.”

The transmission cuts.

Still, he can’t help but be heartened.

That’s two more words than he’d expected from her.

*

“Luke,” Lando says, excitement fizzing and popping beneath his skin. It threatens to burst out of him. _All right, all right. Calm down_ , he thinks, fighting the urge to grin. “I got a lead on Han.”

The small holoprojection of Luke blurs for a moment, shifting from a chest up view of him to a close-up of his head. Lando can all but see him leaning forward, maybe gripping the base of the projector. He’s so close, Lando’s pretty sure that’s hope sparkling in his eyes and not just the fuzz of a shoddy transmission across too great a span of distance. “You’re kidding,” Luke says, dialing himself back as best he can. Which isn’t to say he succeeds. The whole of his excitement is written across his face. “That’s—are you sure?”

“Pretty sure,” Lando replies, charmed despite himself. Generosity and relief threaten to turn his update into a full-blown tale, no exploit left unspoken. But there’s sharing good news and fostering expectations and he only wants to do the former. “I’ve gotta check it out a little more, but I think this is it.”

“Where?”

Lando doesn’t answer immediately, licking his lips. On the one hand, what would it hurt to say? On the other, what’s to stop Luke from going off half-cocked without any back up?

 _He’s got Leia._ But that’s not good enough. Lando doesn’t want either of them going off on their own—not without him. Not when it’s his fault. There’s no reason anyone else should be put into danger because of him, not when he’s not there to shoulder some of the burden, too. _Besides, you could be wrong_.

The rest of him shoves his fears to the back of his thoughts. _You can’t keep it from him._

“Look,” Lando says, leaning forward, his hands sketching a vague shape in the air. “Before we do anything, I want to be sure, all right?” He probably shouldn’t be ordering Luke around, probably shouldn’t presume that much familiarity, but Lando’s unscrupulous enough to believe Luke won’t call him on his shit. When Lando leans on the word ‘we,’ dead serious about his continued inclusion in this whole mess, Luke listens, intent. Just as Lando had hoped.

Perhaps he should be grateful that it’s him on this particular call and not Leia. It wouldn’t be nearly so simple with her.

“All right,” Luke answers, conciliatory. He’s a remarkable young man. Han’s lucky to have him. And he’s happy for Han in return. He doesn’t know anything about what they’re like together, but—being a gambling man and all—Lando would put credits on Luke being good for him. Luke just seems like that kind of guy.

“I think he’s on Tatooine,” he says, like ripping a bacta patch off. He waits for the sting of it to fade before he elaborates. “Jabba the Hutt’s palace.”

Luke opens his mouth, closes it. “I don’t know why I’m surprised by that,” he says finally, brow furrowing. Earnest, eyes finding Lando’s, he adds, “Thank you. I wish I could have—”

“Hey,” Lando replies, the urge to reach out, to _console_ Luke almost overwhelming. An itch he can’t scratch. And even though words are his favorite weapon, his favorite tool, they can only do so much across such vast distances. “It’s the least I can do.”

“No, it’s—”

“No, really.” His hands clench in his lap, joints aching with tension. The nails bite into his palm, focusing his attention on something other than… this. “You just heal up, okay?”

Smiling, a little sad all the same, Luke nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Lando says, the word almost an exhalation for how quiet it is. He clears his throat. “How’s the hand?”

“Better.” He lifts it so Lando can see. “A little stiff and—I don’t know? Strange? It doesn’t hurt much though.”

“Well, you’re lookin’ good, kid,” he says. “You’ll be back in the field in no time.”

“Sure,” Luke replies. Then, casual, “Leia will be glad to hear about it, too.”

“Yeah?” Lando’s heart does not climb into his throat and beat between his ears. It _doesn’t_. “How’s she doing?”

Luke shrugs, noticing nothing amiss. Maybe. Lando can hope anyway. “Classified.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—well, anyway. She appreciates your hard work.”

“Uh huh.” He scrubs at his face, a dubious smile threatening to form on it. “And why don’t you tell me about the beachfront property you’d like to sell on Mustafar? The going price is _real_ cheap, right?”

“Huh?” Tilting his head, Luke squints. His expression clears when he realizes Lando’s just spouting nonsense. ”You know what? I don’t want to know.”

 _Kid’s instincts are good_. He says, not a dissimilar sentiment in Lando’s mind, “Good man.”

*

A friend on the inside—best not to say who or how or when or why—smuggles out a holo taken of Jabba’s palace. The image lacks clarity, a morass of heads and limbs and half-caught motion, but in the background, there’s a large, thick rectangular shape. Cast in shadows, you might not know what it is on first glance.

But Lando knows.

“Thank you,” he tells his friend, refusing to allow doubt to wriggle its way into his tone. This seems so easy. And under Tatooine’s twin suns, it’s not hard to reach paranoid conclusions. For how much _light_ this place attracts—too much of it, all day, every day—there’s scum on every corner, dirt in every crevasse. Lies around every corner.

The sand obscures everything, irritates everyone.

This might just be the most miserable place in the galaxy. With the most miserable people.

“You might want to stay away from Jabba’s,” Lando says, his words loaded down with innuendo. Catching his friend’s eye, he nods, passing along a generously endowed credit chit. Hopes he hasn’t just made a terrible mistake. Again. Trust is a hard thing for Lando, easy to take, but hard to give away, even to people he believes are reliable. “Just for a little while.”

*

“Lando,” Leia says, ever herself, hard-edged and skeptical. She threatens to take his breath away by doing nothing at all.

 _Not the time, Calrissian. You gotta focus_.

“Did you get the good news I sent you?” he asks instead, his cheeks aching with the force of the grin. “Welcome back by the way.”

“Yes,” she replies. Her attention shifts downward and a blur of a blur appears in her hand. The holo. “But I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

He doesn’t miss how she’d ignored his greeting.

He’d wished he could send a message to them along with the holo, but just sending the holo had been enough of a risk. He couldn’t dare say it’s Han she’s looking at, not in print, not when an Imperial snoop could intercept it. Live transmissions pose a risk as well, but not such a large one being the more expensive, more secure option. “You can’t guess?” he asks, unfairly and unusually burdened by a streak of shyness.

Of what few things he wouldn’t want to grandstand about, this is the one he wants to grandstand about the least. Better for her to say it.

Her lips purse as says nothing for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Han?”

“I hope you’re ready to go get him.”

A conflicted wash of emotions cross her face. Hope. Concern. Guilt, maybe. Though he doesn’t understand why she might feel that particular emotion. But as quickly as he sees it, it flickers to another one, an easy one.

Resolve.

“All right,” she says, narrowing her eyes. After a pause: “I might have an idea about that.”

*

They get him and it’s the sort of con Lando had always dreamed about—except in his dreams there’d been more credits involved and less having to saving Lando’s best friend because Lando had made a mistake and not so many Hutts involved. They, too, might not have gone through the trouble of getting caught first. Though if he’s being honest, he’s thought more than once that half the fun is in the daring escape.

Which is why it’s so damned hard to hold back when they’ve escaped. When everyone is safe and sound and whole. Han might be grumpy, but the smiles Luke and Leia share—especially Leia’s, so full of warmth and relief and joy—more than make up for Han’s…

“What in the hell were you thinking?” Han says, blinking furiously under the grimy overhead lights in the _Falcon’s_ galley, the only place with enough room for all of them. He breathes deeply and opens his mouth to continue what Lando expects could have been a fit of epic proportions. Instead, Luke steps forward, hands raised, while Han falls instantly silent. It’s not any sort of Jedi trick Lando’s ever heard of—not that he’s an expert—but it sure as hell does the job.

Might not even be a Jedi trick. Might, in fact, just be a Luke trick.

Whatever it is, it’s a good one.

“We were thinking you needed a hand in there,” Luke says, far more calm than Lando would be, that’s for damned sure.

“Yeah, well. You could’ve been—” Han says, choking on his retort. Then, apparently finding an easy target in Lando, he points, his eyes flashing with anger. “And you! We wouldn’t even have been in this mess if it wasn’t for you.”

Dry, he says, “You’re wel—”

“Han, enou—” Leia replies, far louder than Lando, but at the exact same time. Scowling, cheeks flushed, she pauses. All but swallowing her pride, she continues speaking, sighing almost bitterly if Lando knows anything about her. She probably hadn’t expected to find herself defending him. But, bless her, she does, hands smoothing down her shirt. Dignified, she finishes, “Enough. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”

Han’s eyebrow arches high on his forehead, his disbelief written in the stiff smile that grows by slow, cracking inches. “Oh, I get it.” The ice of that smile shatters into something familiar and laden with innuendo. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Princess.”

“Hey, now,” Lando says, heat blooming across his cheeks—a sensation he hasn’t felt in a long, long time. He’s not embarrassed, not exactly, but Leia doesn’t deserve to be teased like this. Not when they’ve all just gone through hell for Han.

“It’s been a rough time for everyone,” Luke says, reasonable. Close enough to Han now to touch, he brushes his hand across Han’s back, curls his fingers around Han’s shoulder.

Leia glares at Han, furious and pink cheeked. “You’re a real piece of work,” she says. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I know,” Han replies, apologetic—almost. Like he knows he’s a raging nerfherder and can’t be bothered to help it. But Lando is willing to forgive him for it. At least until Han winks at him and undoes the work that one small concession had gotten him. “You really are an old smoothie.”

“Next time, you’re gonna end up a permanent wall hanging.” Lando smiles, crisp and sickly sweet. It’s one thing for Han to give him a hard time. It’s another thing entirely to do the same to Leia. Han should be grateful to have friends like her, not take her goodwill for granted. “No offense, Luke.”

“Oh,” Luke says, lofty, shuffling Han toward the door, “none taken. Come on, Han.”

“I want my vest back, Calrissian!” Han says as they cross the threshold into the hallway, Luke’s hand guiding him the whole time.

It’s not until they’re gone that Lando realizes how bad an idea them going had been. At least with them there, Leia didn’t have to be his sole focus. And she, too, had had something else to turn her attention to. Now that it’s just them…

 _You’ve never been alone with her before. Not without vast distances stretching out between you_.

 _Hold it together_.

He distinctly remembers what it was like to feel like the ‘old smoothie’ Han had claimed he is. But right now, he doesn’t even know where to start. Perhaps it’s a good thing that he’s failing so spectacularly. That’s what he tells himself anyway. From the start, Leia hadn’t seemed more than superficially charmed by his attentions. And that charm certainly hadn’t blunted her later opinion of him.

 _You gotta say something,_ he thinks, mind rifling through every conversational skill he has, searching for anything that might be of use. But he’s a gambler, an entrepreneur, a smooth-talker. And Leia Organa is a trained diplomat, a skilled Alliance leader. Nothing he might say wouldn’t have occurred to her first.

He discards the first three things he thinks of. Throws out the fourth for good measure. And just when he thinks he’s got it, Leia interrupts him with a sigh, her hand brushing across her forehead. “Han is always going to be Han, I suppose,” she says, frowning, like she doesn’t want to concede even that much about him, “but I’m glad he’s back.”

“Me, too.” Lando looks toward the doorway, just to make sure Han’s not standing in the hallway waiting to hear what Lando’s about to say. He’d never hear the end of it if Han knew. “Galaxy wouldn’t be the same without him.”

“Mmm. That’s one way of putting it,” Leia replies, thoughtful. She turns toward him, her eyes bright with… something. Interest, maybe. Or intrigue. Tinged with… something else.

 _You used to be better at reading people,_ he thinks, mournful. Reading people is one of his greatest assets. Or was.

“You’re a good man,” Leia says, the words popping into existence out of nowhere. “I misjudged you.”

“Considering the circumstances…” With a discomfited tug on his shirt, he looks somewhere in the vicinity of her boots and lifts one shoulder in a performed, casual shrug. An inauthentic display. Maybe Leia can tell. Maybe she can’t. But his heart squeezes with guilt all the same. He’s already at it again. Telling a lie as easy as breathing. There’s nothing _casual_ about hearing her say that. Still. There is one truthful thing he can say. “Who could blame you?”

“No.” Leia’s head shakes, the lights glinting off the careless braid she’d thrown her hair into as soon as they’d gotten back to the _Falcon_. “No, I can be hasty—and critical. That’s my fault.”

“I—thanks,” he says, quick, quiet. More than ready to move on from this particular conversation. Pasting on a smile, he holds out his hand. When she takes it, he covers hers with his other hand and squeezes lightly. “Think we can be friends after this?”

“That can be arranged,” she says, arch, a sly smile slipping across her lips. ”I don’t apologize to just anyone, you know.”

“Then I’m honored.” Though touched, he hides it behind a gallant bow. It doesn’t have quite the same effect without the sweep of his cape to go along with it, but it’s good enough to serve its purpose.

Leia punches him in the arm, not hard enough to hurt, but enough for him to know she’s seen through his bullshit. _A hell of a woman,_ he thinks, swallowing around the surge of want he feels. Want of her regard, of her time and attention and affection.

“You’re a piece of work yourself,” she replies, though the implication is less sharp in this recitation than the one Han had received. Indecision crosses her face before she speaks again. This time _really_ shocking the hell out of him.

“Have you thought about joining the Alliance?” she asks.

An unexpected fall couldn’t have stolen his breath as quickly as her question does. He laughs, surprised, almost coughs with it, and shakes his head. “No, that’s something I can safely say I’ve never considered.”

For one moment, her features crumple. Lando doesn’t dare believe it’s in disappointment. Why would she be disappointed? Who would want someone in the Alliance who’d colluded with the enemy? Even if it had been with the best of intentions. Frowning, she moves toward the door, brushing past him. “We could use people like you,” she says, clasping him on the arm. “That’s all.”

Before he can formulate a worthy answer, she’s already gone, the back of her white vest the last flash of her he sees before she disappears from view completely.

 _I’ll be damned_.

Once the shock wears off, he’s certain the grin that replaces it is the kind of goofy smile best kept private. Or, at the very least, Lando’s glad there’s no one around to witness it.

Lando had never considered himself a Rebellion sort of guy. Too principled. Too idealized. He prefers to keep things neutral, easy on all sides. But from the looks of it, the Empire isn’t going to allow that kind of flexibility anymore. There is no safety in neutrality. Not for him. Not any longer.

Maybe, since this is the case, he _could_ be a Rebellion sort of guy.

Might be worth a shot anyway.

He could probably even leverage some protection for his people back on Bespin. Which is all he’d ever wanted anyway.

At this point, he could do a lot worse than stick around.

*

“You’re going _where_?” Han asks—yells really—audible all the way from the cockpit. Lando turns toward Leia and they share confused shrugs. Lando can’t tell whether Luke—who else could he be arguing with, not Chewbacca certainly or they’d know—has responded or not, but it doesn’t matter, because Han’s already at it again. “But you just left that swamp hole.”

Lando grips the console, pushing himself to his feet, but Leia covers Lando’s hand with her own and shakes her head. He ignores the pleasant warmth of her skin against his. “It’s not our fight,” she says, nodding for him to sit back down.

“You know what’s going on?”

Leia looks both ways, bites her lip, sucks at the inside of her mouth in momentary indecision. “Luke’s going back to the Dagobah system.” She stares down at her hand, pulls it back a fraction of a second later. “He’s wanted to ever since—but he couldn’t… not while Han was gone.”

“Why would he…?”

“He has to complete his training.” She speaks forcefully as though she genuinely understands what he’s doing and why. Personally, Lando’s not so sure what to think about it. Interpreting his silence as disbelief, she leans toward him, waiting for him to ask the question. And he does.

Sort of.

“But—”

“We all have duties to complete. No matter how distasteful we find them.” She speaks quickly, like she’s trying to convince herself, too, and not just him.

Han’s voice drifts toward them, distorted now by further distance. Still, Lando can guess the general content of the argument. “Han’s not gonna like that.”

“No,” she replies, “I suspect not.”

“What do you think?”

“I think I’d prefer his skills to remain with us until this is over,” she says, looking out toward the stars. “But that’s not my decision to make. Nor is it Han’s. Not that I could change his mind even if I wanted to. Either of them.” She turns back toward Lando, offering him her full regard. Almost inaudible, she asks, “Have you thought any more about what I said?”

It’s been a day maybe since she first brought it up, and it’s all he’s thought about the whole time. Not that he’s willing to say as much. He’d much rather hide behind a lie—”no, I haven’t”—or even the truth—”no, I don’t think I should”—but instead… instead, he says, “Some.”

“And?”

“If you want me there…” His knuckles rap against his console, a slow tap, tap, tap that buys him a few seconds to think it through. He sighs, lets himself agree to the latest in a long line of terrible ideas. “… you’ve got me.”

Her face lights up when he says that, but he only gets to see it for a moment before she twists away to scrutinize their flight plan and ETA. ”That’s great, Lando. Really.”

But Lando’s not fooled. He can see the way her cheeks flush, hear the tiny hitch when she says his name.

It is great. To her. Really.

And that means it’s at least that good to him, too.

*

“So,” Leia says, drunk on victory if not on liquor, “you blew up the Death Star.”

Lando grins in response, exhilaration pulsing in time to the relentless beating of drums, of stormtrooper helmets, of tree trunks and rocks and animal bones. Anything Endor’s natives can get their hands on. It’s not the spot he’d have chosen for a party of this particular caliber, but underneath a night sky lit with fireworks, the squeal of X-wings racing one another in low atmosphere, he can’t think of any better place for it. “I had a little help,” he admits, gaze falling on Nien Nunb and Wedge. He points them out, because something as monumental as all this—he doesn’t have to keep it to himself. Points her out, too. And Han. And every last one of the Ewoks in sight. “A _lot_ of help.”

“Uh huh.”

“I hear they give out medals for that sort of thing,” he continues.

“They do.” She performs a slow turn, her long hair trailing after her as she takes it all in. “I suspect there will be a lot of medal ceremonies not too long from now.”

“Uh huh,” he replies, parroting her. “I guess you’re gonna need a lot of metal.”

She steps closer, grabbing onto his arm, tucking herself at his side. Pulling him away from the morass of people still dancing, still chatting and laughing and spinning tales of their exploits. Hands slice through the air in illustration of this, that, and the other deed of heroics, their excitement growing with each retelling.

They pass Luke, clad in black, more somber than the occasion should call for. Lando claps him on the shoulder and Leia nods at him, unable to hide her pleasure, her pride in him. “Han’s over that way,” she says and that brings a smile of uncomplicated joy to his lips. His attention skips past them to where Leia points and remains there. “He’ll be glad to see you.”

“Thanks, Leia,” he says, distracted. “Lando.”

Once Luke moves on, Leia continues to lead Lando away from the party. The sound diminishes, tempered by the buzz of insects, the rustling of leaves, the crack of fallen branches under the paws and hooves of unseen forest creatures. It cools considerably, the fires too far away to heat the air over here. If Lando had thought to grab his cape from _Home One_ , he’d have offered it to Leia. Instead, all he can do is hope she’s not freezing.

“Where are we going?” he asks, hushed, the stillness around him inviting a quiet tone of voice.

“Nowhere.”

“Oh,” he replies. “Makes sense.”

She thwacks him on the arm and pulls him closer, a pleasing pair of contradictory actions. They stroll in silence, crossing a bridge that leads from this tree to one completely unoccupied. The party-induced shadow it casts seems to cool the air further, but Leia hardly seems to feel it. Lando, however, fails to suppress a shiver.

“I never thanked you,” Leia says, thoughtful, approaching the railing at the edge of the platform. It’s about half as tall as it needs to be to protect humans from falling, but she wraps her hands around it anyway, leans against it, trusting it’ll bear her up. Lando, less certain, comes to stand next to her, one hand behind his back, the other hovering near her arm—just in case.

“For what?”

Leia turns. Leans in. Her gaze hones in on that damned hand of his, right near hers. She grabs hold of it, winding her fingers with his. Her palm is neither warm nor cold, but that doesn’t stop a flare of heat from coursing through Lando. A spike of adrenaline follows, and a raised heartbeat. He swallows. Curious—or maybe cowardly—he waits. Wants her to… make whatever move she’s going to make.

“For working so hard to make amends,” she says. “For staying.” Bumping her shoulder against his, she laughs, a little hollow with awkwardness. “For blowing the Death Star out of the sky.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Yeah, that’s all,” she says, dry. She slides her hand up his arm. He shivers again, but this time not from cold.

“It wasn’t that special,” he replies, unsure what to do with his own hands. If he’d imagined a scenario like this, which he _hadn’t_ , it wouldn’t have come out like this. “I do it all the time.”

That hand of hers reaches for the collar of his shirt, her fingers brushing at the crisp lines of it. He doesn’t push into her touch, but it’s a near thing. When she tugs him forward by that selfsame collar, he doesn’t gasp. Or choke. Or otherwise embarrass himself. And he absolutely doesn’t note the sparkling green scent of Alderaanian _spiceflower_ that tickles at his nose. The hazard of being so close to her, he guesses. _Where’d she find perfume all the way out here?_

 _I didn’t even know_ spiceflower _existed anymore_.

 _Maybe it doesn’t_.

“Lando?” she asks, way, way nearer than she’d been a moment ago. His attention falls to her lips, her chin, drift back up to her eyes. Which crinkle with good humor, almost as though to say _what happened to that old smoothie I heard so much about?_

Lando’s asking himself that same question. She deserves a better showing than this. “Yeah?” He winces.

“Thank you.” Pushing herself onto her toes, she presses her lips against his. The hand caught in his collar comes up and curls around the back of his neck. He responds immediately by settling his own on her waist. She presses herself a little closer, nips at his lower lip, slides her tongue between his teeth, encouraging.

She blindsides him, the giddy thrill of it worming around in his stomach. Few people—few people who aren’t Darth Vader, that is—have taken him so wholly by surprise. _This isn’t like any kind of ‘thank you’ kiss I’ve ever heard of_.

When she finally breaks the kiss, Lando almost chases after her for another. He doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes until he opens them again, the moonlight glinting off her hair. “Huh.” He thumbs his mouth, thoughtful, and bites his cheek to keep from smiling too widely. “You’re welcome.”

“What are you planning to do?” she asks after a moment, waving her hand to fully encompass her meaning. “The galaxy will never be rifer with possibility than it is right now.”

“What are _you_ planning to do?”

“Rebuild the Republic,” she says, not even hesitating.

“If there’s room in that plan,” he says, wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her close, glorying in both of those facts at once, “for a legitimate businessman looking for legitimate opportunities…”

“I’m sure the Republic will need legitimate businessmen,” she replies, her fingers trailing up his side, delicate, as she leans her head against his chest. “Just like I’m sure the Republic will offer those businessmen many legitimate business opportunities.”

Lando’s lips brush against Leia’s forehead when he answers. “Sounds like a good time to be a legitimate businessman then.”

“It might well be.”

Lando peers up at the sky, dark with full night, hazed still in shades of gray and purple by the smoky remnants of a thousand fireworks. The X-wings have ceased their streaking flights across the sky. It feels like there’s no one else on the entire planet. Just him and Leia and a world free from the threat of annihilation—a whole _galaxy_ free from the threat of annihilation. It boggles the mind, but now that they’re there, he can’t imagine it having gone any other way.

Nodding once, sharp, happier than he’s ever been, more certain of the future and his role in it, he says, “Let’s find out.”


End file.
